I did long train journeys weekly between 25 and 15 years ago, approximately. I've chatted with a lot of people, and had quite some interesting discussions. Of

I did long train journeys weekly between 25 and 15 years ago, approximately. I've chatted with a lot of people, and had quite some interesting discussions. Of course people were reading, and/or wearing headphones (mostly younger people), but not all of them. And many were open to conversation even though. Sometimes you read a book to pass the time, but you can be as well interested to a random exchange with a stranger. I was also reading in the train and often wearing headphones, but that didn't prevent conversations from happening. I think that people were less taking book-or-headphones as a signal that you don't want to be disturbed. The experience could also be relatively different depending on what the train population is (e.g. whether the train is filled with tired commuting people or with people coming back from a week-end break). I'm not taking the train as much recently, but people are clearly more isolated into their smartphones now. And have to say, sometimes discussions still do happen.